20mph speed limit on the cards for Taunton town centre
Residents call for safer streets as Taunton council explores 20mph limits for pedestrians and cyclists.
A 20mph speed limit could eventually be introduced in part or all of Taunton town centre, the town council has confirmed.
Taunton resident Michael Stembridge-Montavont raised the issue at the annual town meeting at the Brewhouse Theatre on Tuesday evening (March 24), calling for lower speed limits to make the town centre safer for pedestrians and cyclists.
Town council leader Tom Deakin said this was “something that we are looking to do”, but progress had been limited by the steep costs of implementing lower speed limits – with one quote suggesting it would cost £15,000 per road.
Instead, the council is taking a more targeted approach, gathering data on traffic speeds to identify which parts of the town centre would most benefit from any speed reduction.
Mr Stembridge-Montavont said: “I’d like to suggest the introduction of a 20mph speed limit in central Taunton.
“There are lots of concerns about road safety concerns for pedestrians and cyclists, especially on Priory Avenue, Canon Street and Magdalene Street.
“This would definitely make Taunton’s status as a ‘garden town’ more of a reality.”
Mr Deakin (who also represents the Taunton North division on Somerset Council) responded: “20mph zones is something that we are looking to do as a council. We’ve not, I’ll be honest with you, progressed as actively and as quickly as we may have wanted to have done.
“One of the reasons for that is some of the costs we were quoted for implementing 20mph zones – around £15,000 a road, which we just thought was not necessarily sensible without going to get the evidence first of where the problems are.
“I, like you, think there is absolutely a problem in the areas that you referenced.
“What we have invested in for the short-term, to go and build that data set, is the speed indicator devices that you may have seen flashing around the town.
“They are capturing the speeds of cars going in both directions, so we can understand where the biggest problems are, to then go and build the case of where we should invest in 20mph zones.
“We need to build the data to make sure that we’re investing in the right places and putting those zones where they’re needed the most.”
Any changes to speed limits in the town centre would have to be agreed with Somerset Council, which is responsible for maintaining the county’s road network.